Emergency Landing After Air Scare

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 14, 2000 / 8:00 AM
/ CBS

A Delta Airlines plane carrying 77 passengers and crew made an emergency landing at San Francisco International Airport Monday after its landing gear failed to retract on takeoff, an airport spokesman said early Tuesday.

No one aboard the Boeing 727-200 aircraft was injured when the plane touched down about 8 p.m. The right landing gear was not secure during the landing, and the plane dragged its right wing on the runway, said airport spokesman Gerry Alley.

There was no fire, and passengers were evacuated by an inflatable slide.

"We could tell before they announced anything that there was a problem because we weren't ascending," passenger Jane Vaughn said on the CBS News Early Show. "We kept going up and down and up and down."

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Vaughn said it was "quite peaceful" on the flight. She said the flight attendants reassured people as well as they could.

The plane, Delta Flight 1972, took off from San Francisco about 6:30 p.m. bound for Salt Lake City, but its right landing gear failed to retract and became stuck.

The plane, carrying 70 passengers and seven crew, circled the area for more than an hour and dumped fuel before attempting the emergency landing.

Alley said the incident forced some flight delays and caused some planes to be diverted to other airports in the area. The airport was briefly closed during the emergency landing, and one of its main landing runways was still closed early on Tuesday.

"The airplane is on the runway 28 right," Alley said. "A recovery crew is working to lift it and get in a position where it can be moved. Hopefully we'll have the runway cleared by early morning."